Someday this will be a vending machine

Canadian scientists have 3D printed testicular cells — “and identified promising early signs of sperm-producing capabilities.”

[The researchers] hope the technique will one day offer a solution for people living with presently untreatable forms of male infertility.

Next up: Fine-tuning, and exposing the cells to “different nutrients and growth factors” to try to get them to produce sperm.

Press L2 for a tall blond boy

New Covid vaccines

From MIT: A yeast-based vaccine they say is “inexpensive, easy-to-store, and [an] effective alternative to RNA vaccines.” And because it can be produced by yeast, it can be made all over the world. Clinical trials are starting.

From Penn State: An inhalable aerogel that works in mice. Besides not needing a needle, this would (if it works in humans) prevent the virus from even gaining a foothold — it “would elicit local immunity at the primary site of infection.”

Rolling the dice

Congress declined to provide more money for the U.S. response to Covid-19, which hopefully won’t be an issue. But, as Forbes points out, if another wave of the virus starts sweeping the country … well, it won’t be pretty.

• Monoclonal antibody treatments will be severely limited, or left to the states to pay a large part of the price tag.
• People without health insurance — and remember, Georgia has the country’s third-highest rate of uninsured — “will no longer receive free Covid-19 tests and treatments as of March 25, and vaccination coverage for the uninsured will end April 5.” But they’ll still be walking around.
• Oh, and those anti-viral pills that so many people are counting on for treatment? Because they’re only authorized for emergency use, and the government won’t have the money for them … well, they simply won’t be available.

In unrelated news… worldwide, new Covid-19 infections rose for the first time since January, jumping 8 percent week to week.

Chocolate … with a grain of salt

The flavanols in cocoa might reduce cardiovascular risk … according to a study funded by Mars, Inc. (as in the M&M people).

Acid, SSRIs, and plasticity

The idea that small doses of LSD treats depression and anxiety is catching on, but the actual mechanism isn’t clear. But Canadian neurobiologists have made a solid step to figuring it out.

The short version: LSD seems to work like an SSRI on steroids. Wait, no. Bad analogy. Like an SSRI-Plus. It increases serotonin transmission just like an SSRI — by desensitizing the right receptors and getting them to produce more serotonin.

But it goes a step further by promoting the formation of more branches between neurons, i.e., dendritic spines. “LSD can rebuild these branches that are ‘dismantled’ due to stress. This is a sign of brain plasticity.”

But before you think about licking those Mickey Mouse stamps you got at the Dead show at the Fox Theater in 1980, remember, as always, “More studies are needed.”

Cloaking device

Bacteria can be used to carry drugs to tumors — that’s not a new idea. The problem is that the body tends to attack that bacteria, what with it being, you know, bacteria.

But what if you cloaked the bacteria and made it invisible to the body? It could get where it needed to go like slipping past the castle guards and do its thing without pesky interference.

And that’s what Columbia University engineers came up with — an ‘invisiblity cloak’ for bacteria that using “inducible capsular polysaccharides” to let them slip past the immune system and carry its payload to the tumor.

Even better, they can adjust how long that coating lasts — that is, how long the bacteria delivers drugs before the body says “Waaaaaaait a second” and destroys it.

What, you want more? Sheesh, fine. The coated bacteria can also migrate from one tumor to another, if the cancer has metastasized. It’s all about how the cloak is tweaked.

That’s not scary at all

Our artificially intelligent friends (please don’t call them “robot overlords”) are getting very good at coming up with new drug candidates. But what if, just for kicks, you asked them to come up with, oh, I dunno, chemical weapons? The result — found researchers in the US, UK, and Switzerland — is not comforting:

“AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours.”

Said the lead author in an interview, “I’ll be a little vague with some details because we were told basically to withhold some of the specifics.” Well I sure feel much better.

The Long Read: ‘What Say You’ edition

Ever wish there was a decent option for communicating with people who don’t speak English? You’re not alone. Let’s face it, “Doctors often turn to Google Translate to talk to patients. They want a better option.”